‘We were on our honeymoon,’ he said. ‘We had only booked one night but we stayed a week.’ The man had a distinct Belfast accent.
‘Mr Maguire thought we were still a guest house,’ said Kathleen.
‘Oh no. We stopped that a long time ago.’ Mary flicked to the last entry in the book. ‘In 1971.’ She set it on the sideboard and, rubbing her hands, moved closer to the fire.
‘It’s like January,’ she said. ‘Is the kettle on?’
Her sister asked Mr Maguire if he would have more tea.
‘I wouldn’t say no.’ He handed over his empty cup and saucer and Kathleen rattled it on to the tray with her own. She elbowed her way out of the door to the kitchen, leaving Mary and the stranger in silence.
‘Are you looking for a place to stay?’ Mary asked.
‘Yes. I decided to treat myself to a holiday. It’s years since I’ve gone anywhere.’
‘Have you tried any of the other guest houses?’
‘No. This is where I wanted to come.’
‘It was nice of you to remember us.’
‘It’s funny how well you remember good times, holidays,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you don’t remember us. We would have been one couple in a crowded summer.’
‘Yes, sometimes it’s difficult. But I rarely forget a face. Names, yes.’
Mary sat down on the rug in a delicate side-saddle posture and shivered. From her low position she could see the man’s immaculately polished shoes. Her mother had always told her a man’s footwear was the key to his character. ‘Beware of someone with dirty shoes,’ she had said. ‘Even worse is the man who has polished his shoes but neglected to do his heels. But worst of all is the man with black polish stains on his socks. It’s the ultimate sloth.’ Mary looked up at him but his face was in shadow because his back was to the grey light from the window. He wore an open-necked shirt, a pair of trousers too light for his age and a blue sweater with a small emblem of a red jaguar on it.
‘And Mrs Maguire?’
‘My wife died last December.’
‘Oh I’m sorry.’
‘She had been ill for a long time. It was a merciful release.’
‘Oh I am sorry,’ she said. ‘What brings you back to this part of the world?’ He hesitated before answering.
‘I wanted to see Spanish Point. Where the galleon went down. The Girona.’
‘Yes, I walk out there frequently myself. There’s nothing much. Rocks, sea.’
‘I was at an exhibition in the museum – of the stuff they brought up – and I thought I’d just like to look at the place. Imagine it a bit.’
Kathleen’s voice called loudly from the kitchen. Mary excused herself and went out.
‘He wants to stay for a couple of nights,’ whispered Kathleen. ‘I told him I’d have to ask you. What do you think?’
‘How do you feel about it? Can you cope?’
‘Yes, I don’t mind. The money would come in handy.’ Mary was about to go back to the other room when her sister held her by the arm.
‘But listen to this,’ Kathleen laughed and wheezed. ‘We had been talking about books. He tells me he reads a lot – as a matter of fact he’s book mad – and when I came in with the tea I said “Do you like Earl Grey?” and he says, “I don’t know. What did he write?” Isn’t that marvellous?’ Mary smiled and nodded while Kathleen giggled uncontrollably, saying to herself, ‘Stop it Kathleen,’ and slapping the back of her wrist. She straightened her face and set out some more biscuits on a plate. Then she burst out laughing again.
‘He kept talking about the eedgit, at one stage.’
‘The what?’
‘The book “The Eedgit”. One of the big Russians. He meant The Idiot.’
‘Oh,’ said Mary.
‘Really, Kathleen, control yourself.’ Her sister again straightened her face and picked up the tray. Mary opened the door for her.
‘It’ll be something for me to do,’ Kathleen whispered over her shoulder as she led the way into the other room.
‘That’ll be fine, Mr Maguire,’ she said. ‘If you’ll give me a minute I’ll fix up your room for you.’ He edged forward in his seat and made a vague gesture as if to assist Kathleen with the tray.
‘Thank you very much,’ he said and smiled up at the two sisters. ‘I’ll try and cause as little disruption as possible.’ Mary sat on the rug again to be near the fire. Mr Maguire sipped from his cup holding his saucer close to his chest.
‘Why did you stop the bed and breakfast?’ he asked.
‘Several reasons,’ said Kathleen. ‘Me for one. My asthma was getting intolerable. It’s really a nervous condition with me. The very thought of summer would bring on an attack. Then there was the Troubles, of course. After ’sixty-nine people just stopped coming. Now we call this place the last resort.’
‘When we were here the place was full of Scotch.’
‘Yes, and the same ones came back year after year. But after the Troubles started nobody would risk it. Then Mary got a job teaching when the new school was built.’
‘And mother died,’ said Mary.
‘Oh did she? I never saw her. We just heard her – upstairs.’
‘She was very demanding,’ said Kathleen, ‘and I was in no position to cope with her. It was she really who insisted that we keep the place open. All her life she had a great fear of ending up in the poor-house. She was the one who had the bright idea of extending out the back just before the slump. We’re still paying the mortgage.’
Mr Maguire set his cup and saucer on the hearth. ‘Do you mind if I smoke a pipe?’ He addressed Mary who turned to her sister.
‘Kathleen?’
‘I like the smell of pipe-smoke. It’s cigarettes I can’t stand.’
Mr Maguire took out a small pipe and a yellow plastic pouch. He filled the pipe as he listened to Kathleen talk about the old days when the house was full of guests. Mary watched him press the tobacco into the bowl with his index finger. When he struck the match he whirled his hand in a little circle to attenuate the flare before holding the match to his pipe. The triangular flame gave little leaps as he held it over the bowl and drew air through it, his lips popping quietly. Throughout the whole operation he continued to nod and say ‘hm-hm’ to Kathleen’s talk.
‘You’ll just have to take us as we are,’ she was saying, ‘not being officially open and all that. I’ll give you a key and you can come and go as you like.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mr Maguire, striking another match.
‘And breakfast. Would you like a fry in the morning?’
‘Yes, please. It’s the only time I ever do have the big fry. I wouldn’t think I was on holiday if I didn’t. Do you still bake your own wheaten bread?’
‘No. My asthma. The flour can sometimes go for it. Let me get you an ashtray,’ said Kathleen, jumping up. Mr Maguire sat with a tiny bouquet of dead matches between his fingers.
‘Did you ever think of selling?’
Kathleen laughed and Mary smiled down at the fire.
‘We tried for three years,’ said Kathleen. ‘Would YOU want to buy it? The ads were costing us so much that we had to take it off the market.’
When the tea was finished Kathleen showed him up to his room, talking constantly, even over her shoulder on the stairs. Mary followed them, her hands tucked into opposite sleeves, like a nun. The bed was stripped to its mattress of blue and white stripes. Mr Maguire set his bag by the window.
‘I’ll put the electric blanket on to air the bed for you,’ said Kathleen.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You get a great view from this window.’ Mary stared over his shoulder at the metallic sea. His face in the light was sallow and worn, with vertical creases down each side of his mouth and his forehead corrugated into wrinkles as he spoke. He wouldn’t win any prizes for his looks but somehow his face suited him. He gave the impression of being an ex-sportsman, wiry and tough, sufficiently tall to have developed a slight stoop of the shoulders. He had eno
ugh hair to make her wonder whether or not it was a toupee. If it was it was a very convincing one.
‘Where’s a good place to eat now?’
‘The Royal do a nice meal,’ said Kathleen.
‘The Royal?’
‘Is that too expensive?’
‘It was in my day.’
Kathleen lifted the foot of the bed and eased it out from the wall.
‘Try the Croft Kitchen,’ she said. ‘I think they’re still open. What little season there is, is over.’ Seeing him hesitate she added, ‘It’s on High Street opposite what used to be the Amusements.’ She stepped out on to the landing. ‘The bathroom is second on your right. The light switch is on the outside.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘I’ll just get some bed-linen.’ Kathleen hurried off.
‘She’s excited,’ said Mary, her voice lowered. Mr Maguire smiled and nodded. His voice was as quiet as hers.
‘On our honeymoon,’ he said, ‘my wife went to the bathroom . . .’ Mary withdrew her hands from her sleeves and straightened a picture, ‘. . . and someone turned out the light on her. She was terrified. She heard a footstep, then the light went out, then breathing. The poor woman sat for half the night in the dark before she had the courage to come out. I was sound asleep, of course.’
‘How awful,’ said Mary.
Kathleen strode in, the fresh bed-linen pressed between her arms like a white accordion. ‘Right, there’s work to be done,’ she said, dumping them on the bed.
That night even though she felt tired and had gone to bed early Mary could not sleep. She heard Mr Maguire come in at a reasonable hour. Apart from a little throat-clearing he himself was quiet but she heard everything he did – the popping of the wash-hand basin in her own room as he used his, the flush of the toilet from the end of the corridor, through the wall the creaking of his bed as he got into it. It seemed hours before she heard the snap of his bedside light being switched off and she wondered what book it was that kept him reading so late.
She woke several times and each time was wet with perspiration, so much so that she was afraid she had had an accident. She felt like the shamelessly vulgar girl on the calendar which hung above the cash desk in the garage, emerging from the waves in a dripping white chemise which concealed nothing. Her condition was becoming worse instead of better. At times in front of her classes she felt as if there was a hole in her head and she was being filled from top to toe, like a hot-water bottle. Some months ago Kathleen had become alarmed seeing her sister steady herself with her knuckles on the kitchen table, her face red and wet with perspiration.
‘What’s wrong?’
Mary had simply said that her ovaries were closing down. The inner woman was giving up the ghost, but not without a struggle. She showered twice a day now – when she got up in the morning and before her evening meal. She refused to go to the doctor because, she said, the condition was normal. The Home Encyclopedia of Medicine told her all she wanted to know. Letters in women’s magazines frequently dealt with the subject, in some cases in embarrassing detail. It was a sign of the times when you bought a perfectly middle-of-the-road woman’s magazine and were frightened to open the pages because of what you might read: sex mixed in with the knitting patterns; among the recipes, orgasms and homosexuality and God knows what. She was embarrassed, not on her own behalf but for the teenagers in her classes. Magazines like the ones she bought would inevitably be going into all their homes. Each time her eyes flinched away from reading such an article she blushed for the destruction of her pupils’ innocence. As for some of the daily papers, she wouldn’t give them house-room.
Mr Maguire cleared his throat and she heard the twang of him turning in his seldom-used bed.
During the last class of the day Mary stood staring, not out, but at the window. On this the leeward side of the school, the glass was covered with rain droplets which trembled at each gust of wind. Behind her a fourth-year class worked quietly at a translation exercise. She was proud of her reputation for having the most disciplined classes in the school. She knew the pupils disliked her for it but it was something they would thank her for in later life.
At ten to four she saw Mr Maguire walking out of town with his hands clasped behind his back and his head down into the wind. When she eventually got out of school he was standing smiling at the gate.
‘I thought it must be that time,’ he said, ‘and I was just passing.’ He offered to carry her bag but she said that it was light enough. They began walking into the fine drizzle.
‘What a day that was. Do you have children, Mr Maguire?’
‘No, my wife was never a well woman. It would have been too much to ask.’ Again she was struck by the coarseness of his accent. His face relaxed and he smiled. ‘Where did all the books come from in your house?’ he asked.
‘That was my father mostly. He was Headmaster of the local Primary. He was interested in all sorts of things. Nature study, science, history. We were always used to books in the house.’
‘Lucky. I had to do all the work myself. At a very late stage. Imagine sitting your A-levels for the first time at fifty.’
‘Is that what you did?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘I admire that.’
Mr Maguire shrugged shyly.
‘Not everybody does. My wife used to make fun of me. But she had a very hard time. She was in a lot of pain and couldn’t understand. I think she was jealous of the time I spent reading. She thought it was a hobby or a pastime or something like that. She couldn’t have been further from the truth.’ Seeing Mary change her briefcase from her right to her left hand Mr Maguire insisted that he carry it. She reluctantly let him take it.
He continued talking. ‘When you find out about real education you can never leave it alone. I don’t mean A-levels and things like that – you are just proving something to yourself with them – but books, ideas, feelings. Everything to do with up here.’ He tapped his temple. ‘And here.’ He tapped the middle of his chest.
Mary asked, ‘What do you like to read then?’
‘The classics. Fiction. Good stuff.’
The wind tugged at his hair, blowing it into various partings. It was definitely not a toupee.
‘I sometimes stop here and walk to the end.’ She pointed to the pier, its back arched against the running sea. Occasionally a wave broke over it and spray slapped down on the concrete. Some boys with school-bags were running the gauntlet along the pier.
‘They’ll get soaked, or worse,’ said Mr Maguire.
‘That’s nothing. This summer I saw them ride off the end on a bicycle. They had it tied to one of the bollards so’s they could pull it up each time. I couldn’t watch. It gave me the funniest feeling. I had to go away in the end.’
When they got back to the house Mr Maguire set her briefcase in the hall, nodded to her and climbed the stairs. Mary went to the kitchen and sat on a stool beside the Rayburn drying out as the kettle boiled.
‘Where’s our guest?’ asked Kathleen.
‘Upstairs.’
‘He’s a strange fish. But nice.’
‘Yes, you and he certainly seem to get along,’ said Mary. Kathleen rolled her eyes to heaven.
Mary laughed and said, ‘He walks like the Duke of Edinburgh.’ She stood up and did an imitation backwards and forwards across the kitchen, her hands joined behind her back, her head forward like a tortoise.
Kathleen giggled, saying, ‘I was making his bed today and do you know what he’s reading? Or at least has lying on his bedside table.’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘A book of English verse.’
‘Why not?’
‘It doesn’t tally somehow. Him and poetry. And do you know – he’s brought a full shoe-polishing kit with him. Brushes, tins, cloths, the lot. Mother would have been so pleased.’
‘You shouldn’t nosey.’
‘I couldn’t help seeing them. I had to move them out of the way to make the
bed.’
‘What’s wrong with being careful about your appearance?’
‘Nothing. But it does seem a bit extravagant.’
Kathleen heard Mr Maguire’s footsteps on the landing and bounded to the kitchen door.
‘There’s a cup of tea in the pot, Mr Maguire,’ she called.
When he came in Mary smelt soap off his hands as he reached in front of her for his cup.
‘Well, how was your day?’ asked Kathleen.
‘The rain drove me home,’ he smiled. His hair was dark and neatly parted, as if he had used hair-oil. ‘You see how I call it home already.’ Kathleen offered him a biscuit but he refused.
‘How was your meal in the Croft Kitchen last night?’
‘It was closed.’
‘Where did you eat then?’
‘The café on the front. It was good. Reasonable too.’
‘Eucch, what a place,’ Kathleen shuddered. ‘All those sauce bottles on the tables. They’re encrusted.’
‘No, it was fine, really.’
‘Look, we don’t eat extravagantly ourselves but you’re welcome to join us this evening.’
‘Ah now that wouldn’t be fair.’
‘We’re just having mince and carrots. It’s no bother to set a place for an extra one.’ Mr Maguire hesitated. He looked at Mary who was staring into her cup. She raised her eyes to him.
‘Why don’t you stay?’ she said.
‘Only on one condition. You must charge me extra.’
‘That’s settled then,’ said Kathleen. ‘We can haggle about the price later.’
‘It’s very kind of you. Both of you.’
Mr Maguire appeared at dinner time wearing a tie but no jacket. Mary sat opposite him, the tails of hair at her neck still damp from the shower, while Kathleen served and talked.
‘There’s a whist drive tonight in the hall, Mr Maguire. Guests are very welcome.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mr Maguire, ‘I was never any good at card games – especially whist. Partners depending on you to play the right card. I played once or twice and at the finish up my shins were black and blue.’
Collected Stories Page 32
